Hey, How are you doing? I hope you are doing well. I am doing well. I hope your holidays were great. As you can imagine Christmas isn’t really a big thing here in Asia. It is celebrated a little here but it is a rather new idea here and hasn’t really translated well. It is very commercial here and lacks the roots it has back home. Despite this, my fellow classmate and I made the best of it. We had a very special Christmas together. We exchanged gifts and made food together. It was pretty awesome. We also got to experience some of each other’s traditions. For example, Chewie is from New Zealand. In New Zealand, Christmas is a summer holiday because it is in the southern Hemisphere. They often celebrate Christmas on the beach and barbeque. Another one of my friends, Ookami, is from India. Back home he celebrates Christmas by caroling so that was something we also made sure to do. It was cool to see how my friends celebrated Christmas. I think I will remember this experiance for a long time and I was glad to share it with friends. I hope your Christmas was memorable and you got to be with those you love.
Around the time when students back home were starting their new semesters, students here were starting to go into finals mode. Finals mode back home and here look about the same. You see students with books in their hands at all hours of the day. They won’t talk to anyone. They don’t answer social media. That is what it looks like and it lasts about a month. At the end of this focused cram period students go home for a month or so and then come back for another semester of toil. Here students are finishing this period and heading off to break. While they are away I will be heading off to Thailand. I leave for Thailand in four days. This will be my last visa run of the year. After Thailand the next time I should be riding on a plane I should be on my way home. That is truly astounding to me. I have been on such a journey these last several months. I have some question ahead of me please pray for me that I will know where God is leading me.